Hello, world! This blog began on September 28, 2007, and so far nobody has come looking for me with tar and feathers.
On my honor, I will do my best not to bore you. All comments are welcome as long as your discourse is civil and your language is not blue.

Happy reading, and come back often!

And whether my cup is half full or half empty, fill my cup, Lord.

Copyright 2007 - 2017 by Robert H.Brague

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

If you're going to be forced to spend a day at a beach in Florida...

...it may as well be with beautiful people.

(Photographs by Linda C. Brown a.k.a. Aunt Da, August 2017)

These people, who are beautiful inside and out, are my younger son and his wife with their two sons, aged 21 and 19, on a last outing of summer before the younger set return to their respective universities. One almost expects Gatsby to appear over the dunes.

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Y.Pudding, Mrs. RWP and I stayed at home to guard the valuables and fend off intruders and clean out the stables, I mean feed Sharpie, the black Lab. I pictured the people being forced to spend a day at the beach with beautiful people as you, the readers of this blog. But you pretty much nailed it in the bathing costume department, except that mine reveals rather than conceals the manly torso, if I do say so myself. *flexes for the camera and adoring crowd*

I could not disagree with you about the infinite variety of people. I agree that, essentially, a beach is water and sand but, and it's a huge but, what is on the sand and in the sand; what the texture of the sand is and what it is made of; and, of great importance the character of the beach's surrounding countryside (or townscape) is what really make a beach for me.

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About me

has lived on earth for 76 years and has been married for 54 of those years to Ellie, his wife. They have two sons, one daughter, the appropriate assortment of in-laws, and six absolutely magnificent grandchildren. He enjoys reading, playing the piano, driving in the country, sitting by the ocean, watching birds fly, gazing into a roaring fire, holding his wife's hand, and spending time with his grandchildren. He doesn't fancy doing yard work, walking a dog who definitely is not in the mood, or cleaning up after one who is (RIP Jethro, 2004-2013).

Me, circa 2010 (with Mrs. RWP)

A reader in Oregon has requested a current photograph. For the thick of skull, I want to say that I am not exceedingly tall nor is Mrs. RWP exceedingly short. She is sitting in a chair; I am standing behind her and slightly to her right, your left. I am nothing if not thorough. Handsome and thorough. Exceedingly intelligent, very handsome, and thorough. I forgot humble.

Me, circa 1943

A few months before this photograph was taken, I fell through a hole in a chain link fence in New York City and landed on my head on a school’s cement playground that was six feet below sidewalk level. I had a brain concussion. Some people think this helps explain why I am the way I am today. Other people insist nothing can explain why I am the way I am today.

Poem by a Yorkshire Lad

Song for Lost Youth

Perhaps I should have cradled it
Like a dove
Kept it safe with tender love
But I squandered it -
Gushing-blundering-raging
Like a wild mountain stream
Desperate for an ocean
That was but a distant dream.
...I just never thought
That I could have loitered in the shallows
Reflecting the blueness of the sky
- Concealing silver fishes
- Quietly biding my time
- Stretching it out.
And so, and so it's gone now
- My ephemeral youth
- That precious once only gift
- That honeyed sweetness,
Leaving only the trembling resonance
Of distant echoes
From half-remembered hills.